Perilous Vault is a potent card, and while most likely not maindeck viable due to how it conflicts with Monoblack's primary gameplan of accruing board presence while restricting the opponent's options, Vault does do things that Monoblack generally does not have the capability of doing, and has the potential to be a good sideboard card. It removes enchantments and artifacts, cards that Monoblack can typically only remove beforehand with discard spells, and is also able to reset overwhelming board states. It can also just sit on the board dissuading the opponent from committing any cards for fear of losing them, meaning they either try to hit a critical mass of threats that forces you to activate the Vault for the minimum of value, or only commit one or two threats to the table at a time, which plays right into your removal spells. With a Vault and an Underworld Connections in play, it isn't difficult to sit back and gradually rack up overwhelming card advantage if the opponent just twiddles their thumbs in fear of over-committing and losing it all to Vault. Vault is also moderately difficult to remove once resolved (Detention Sphere, Banishing Light, Vraska the Unseen, Reclamation Sage, and Putrefy being the most common answers), and some decks, such as Monoblack itself, can't touch it at all.
It seems at its best vs Monoblue, where it easily answers their plan A of swarming the field, removes the otherwise extremely troublesome Thassa and her Bident, and is difficult for Monoblue to interact with once resolved. It's good against Hexproof as well, crippling their entire offense and likely leaving them with insufficient resources thanks to your other interaction. There's also potential against the mirror and Jund; in the mirror, it answers Underworld Connections, Erebos, and Whip of Erebos, all permanents that usually can't be touched if they slip through your discard, and it even deals with Pack Rat to boot; and against Jund, it mops up Xenagos and all of his Satyr tokens, Domri, and the big monsters. However, Jund has a much easier time answering Vault, since if they weren't already maindecking Vraska and Putrefy, they will almost certainly bring them in postboard, making the potential for a tempo blowout high.
While the benefits sound good, there is a serious conflict of interest with Monoblack's tools and Perilous Vault, a conflict that might prove to be too much to board it in against some decks where it would seem beneficial--Vault actively lessens the value of your other permanents while in play. Dropping an Erebos while you have Vault out may not seem appealing, since the opponent could choose to commit enough cards the next turn to force you to pull the trigger, costing you your Erebos. Similarly, Whip, Liliana, and Connections all seem worse. Whereas you might get multiple activations out of each in a normal game, in a boardstate with Vault you might only get one or two activations. Furthermore, in a boardstate where Vault is the only thing in play, while you might normally be the aggressor in such a situation, your own Vault creates similar tensions. You can commit multiple creatures to pressure your opponent, but then your Vault is just going to sit there since you don't want to blow up your own army, in which case it is essentially a dead card, whereas an Erebos might have been fueling your aggression and putting the game out of reach for the opponent. And if you do nothing, you give the opponent more windows to drop a Connections or Erebos of their own, two-for-oneing you at worst. This isn't even touching on the prohibitive mana investment required; sometimes Vault is just too slow, and sometimes you just can't afford to spend nine mana to answer one threat.
So, taking this into consideration, the only decks I would definitely board Vault in for at the moment are Monoblue and Hexproof. Other matchups where it shows potential would need more testing, as it might simply be more optimal to go all-in on Connections, Erebos, Liliana, and Whip for your sources of card advantage, and just hope to bury the opponent and 1-for-1 and 2-for-1 them enough that you don't get put into a position where Vault would have been your only out.
I SB this in against Mono Black in BUG... seems like if it is good enough for me to board in for you, that it probably is not something good enough for you to run.
I could be wrong though. I have not played my Mono Black deck for a few months.
Vault does some good work against the detention sphere varieties of U/W, big green decks, and can be a breaker in the (puedo)mirror especially in the face of blood baron although it is tricky as B/W can interact with it both in play and in your hand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Perilous Vault is a potent card, and while most likely not maindeck viable due to how it conflicts with Monoblack's primary gameplan of accruing board presence while restricting the opponent's options, Vault does do things that Monoblack generally does not have the capability of doing, and has the potential to be a good sideboard card. It removes enchantments and artifacts, cards that Monoblack can typically only remove beforehand with discard spells, and is also able to reset overwhelming board states. It can also just sit on the board dissuading the opponent from committing any cards for fear of losing them, meaning they either try to hit a critical mass of threats that forces you to activate the Vault for the minimum of value, or only commit one or two threats to the table at a time, which plays right into your removal spells. With a Vault and an Underworld Connections in play, it isn't difficult to sit back and gradually rack up overwhelming card advantage if the opponent just twiddles their thumbs in fear of over-committing and losing it all to Vault. Vault is also moderately difficult to remove once resolved (Detention Sphere, Banishing Light, Vraska the Unseen, Reclamation Sage, and Putrefy being the most common answers), and some decks, such as Monoblack itself, can't touch it at all.
It seems at its best vs Monoblue, where it easily answers their plan A of swarming the field, removes the otherwise extremely troublesome Thassa and her Bident, and is difficult for Monoblue to interact with once resolved. It's good against Hexproof as well, crippling their entire offense and likely leaving them with insufficient resources thanks to your other interaction. There's also potential against the mirror and Jund; in the mirror, it answers Underworld Connections, Erebos, and Whip of Erebos, all permanents that usually can't be touched if they slip through your discard, and it even deals with Pack Rat to boot; and against Jund, it mops up Xenagos and all of his Satyr tokens, Domri, and the big monsters. However, Jund has a much easier time answering Vault, since if they weren't already maindecking Vraska and Putrefy, they will almost certainly bring them in postboard, making the potential for a tempo blowout high.
While the benefits sound good, there is a serious conflict of interest with Monoblack's tools and Perilous Vault, a conflict that might prove to be too much to board it in against some decks where it would seem beneficial--Vault actively lessens the value of your other permanents while in play. Dropping an Erebos while you have Vault out may not seem appealing, since the opponent could choose to commit enough cards the next turn to force you to pull the trigger, costing you your Erebos. Similarly, Whip, Liliana, and Connections all seem worse. Whereas you might get multiple activations out of each in a normal game, in a boardstate with Vault you might only get one or two activations. Furthermore, in a boardstate where Vault is the only thing in play, while you might normally be the aggressor in such a situation, your own Vault creates similar tensions. You can commit multiple creatures to pressure your opponent, but then your Vault is just going to sit there since you don't want to blow up your own army, in which case it is essentially a dead card, whereas an Erebos might have been fueling your aggression and putting the game out of reach for the opponent. And if you do nothing, you give the opponent more windows to drop a Connections or Erebos of their own, two-for-oneing you at worst. This isn't even touching on the prohibitive mana investment required; sometimes Vault is just too slow, and sometimes you just can't afford to spend nine mana to answer one threat.
So, taking this into consideration, the only decks I would definitely board Vault in for at the moment are Monoblue and Hexproof. Other matchups where it shows potential would need more testing, as it might simply be more optimal to go all-in on Connections, Erebos, Liliana, and Whip for your sources of card advantage, and just hope to bury the opponent and 1-for-1 and 2-for-1 them enough that you don't get put into a position where Vault would have been your only out.
I could be wrong though. I have not played my Mono Black deck for a few months.